Despite former Evil Dead frontman Bruce Campbell parting ways with the franchise, which has fissured into various strands over the years, the film series battles on with Campbell now on exec-producing duty alongside the original film’s director, Sam Raimi, to deliver this frenzied, gore strewn reboot/sequel/equal/something, that feels more connected to Fede Alvarez’s 2013 remake than Raimi’s original trilogy.

Helmed by The Hole in the Ground writer/director Lee Cronin, Evil Dead Rise is a feisty, ripped limb lobbing, scatter-gun whirlwind of guts, blood, demonic possession and pregnancy horror that doesn’t muzzle gusto for characters or story, and suffers as a result.

After a goosebump budding prologue, the story zaps backwards and relocates to LA (doubled by New Zealand due to Covid restrictions), where single mother, Elle (Alyssa Sutherland) lives with her kids in an urban high rise. Elle’s technician sister Beth (Lily Sullivan) visits,...